Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Dems promise to obstruct the Senate. GOP: “What else is new?”

Why the sudden hysterics by Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats over the potential rules change to overcome filibusters on judicial nominees? Why are they, in the words of Mark, “puffing their hair…like alley cats” and promising to scowl intensely at Republicans in the Senate chamber? Well, if you believe the American Spectator, it’s because it looks like the Senate Republicans are really going to take the “nuclear option”:

Reid's urgency may be the result of a closed-door -- what some Republican staff called secret -- Senate Republican caucus luncheon on Tuesday afternoon. Rumors were circulating in the Capitol's halls and on K Street that the subject of the luncheon was when and how the nuclear option would be used in the very near future.
The Democrats have promised to slow the Senate’s business with procedural motions if the Republicans force through the rule change to override filibusters on judicial nominees.

I used to be against the rules change, but now I want to see what happens when the Democrats go ballistic. I’m sure the “government shutdown” tactic will work out just as well for them as it did for Newt Gingrich. Plus, we can enjoy the hypocrisy of Kennedy, Schumer and that Constitutional scholar Robert Byrd, who will all deliver frothy, podium-pounding jeremiads against the imperious Republicans.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The problem is that the MSM will of course spin it more like the 80s, in which the Democrats in Congress were not responsible for the shutdowns, but the Republican President was. I was surprised back in 1995 when the media so quickly swapped positions between blaming the President and the Congress. I shouldn't have been.

Basic rule: anything bad is the fault of Republicans. Democrats are innocent victims.